The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 1924. BRITAIN’S HOUSING PROBLEM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18972, 25 March 1924, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 1924. BRITAIN’S HOUSING PROBLEM

Next to unemployment, the shortage of housing accommodation is Britain’s most serious problem. The total annual direct cost to the (excluding Scotland) of tuberculosis alone is round about £14,000,000; and, as Dr. Addison has pointed out in a striking monograph on the slums, the conclusion is irresistible that the cost in physical disability, in loss of work and of working efficiency, in payments for sickness, for treatment, for unemployment, for Poor Law and other charges arising out of bad housing conditions, form a prodigious total. This serious financial aspect of bad housing is commonly lost sight of by those critics who protest that the country cannot afford to make an effort of reconstruction on the grand scale. It is profoundly to be hoped that, in formulating its housing plan in detail, the Labour Government will so arrange the distribution of materials and labour, and so adjust its measures of finance, the worst areas of slumdom are the areas first served. Mr. Wheatley, the Minister for Health, will not need to be reminded of the typical situation at Glasgow, one of the most seari“ daloes examples of slumdom in the British Isles, where more than half the population exists in one or two roomed houses in unspeakable squalor and misery. Nearly 20 years ago the late Dr. Russell described the plight of the people of Glasgow in one of the most moving documents ever written by a public official. Yet the state of Glasgow in its relation to housing is reputed to be more terrible to-day than it has ever been. These conditions, though the figures may be less appalling, are repeated in every large town in the kingdom. The marvel is that the people who languish in them and perish in them have waited so patiently and so long. Weeks ago Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and his colleagues intimated their intention to concentrate a large part of their administrative energies at once upon the housing problem. Time is slipping by, and as yet we have had no evidence of a serious beginning having been made. It would, however, be unreasonable to expect too much. The Labour Ministers undoubtedly nurse ambifious ideals; but in this, as

in other matters, they have to learn that the stern limitations of practical politics do not keep company with miraculous achievement. When the big house-building scheme was first announced a London journal, entirely sympathetic t with tho Government’s proposals, was moved to suggest that its magnitude was beyond the scope of reasonably possible attainment: ‘‘That any Government, however strong and resolute and well supported by public opinion, will be able so to arrange its finances, to ensure the flow of an adequate supply of materials at a reasonable cost, and to fill up the wide de‘ ficiencies ofskilled labour as to make certain of the actual building of 120,000 houses in the first year must imply an almost incredibly powerful manifestation of goodwill, efficiency, co-operation, and popular faith.” Although the country generally is rightly apprehensive of Labour’s Socialistic tendencies, it must in fairness be conceded that if the MacDonald Government succeeds in evolving a comprehensive scheme which allows for a rapid expansion of building from a relatively modest, though substantial, beginning, until, within the space of a couple of years, the industry is taxed to its maximum potential capacity, it will have earned the gratitude of all housing reformers and the vast population of slum-dwellers as well. From the standpoint of finance, the Government is not likply to meqt with any insurmountable difficulty or opposition. Its. case should be based firmly on the fact that house-building at the present moment can be made one of the most truly remunerative of all national investments. As has already been made apparent, its most serious obstacle will be the shortage of skilled labour, a shortage which can only be overcome by some system of mobilisation and intensive training. —■